I frown. “What?”
“Remember that girl we heard laughing?” At my hesitant nod, he continues. “She was close enough I could see through the hedges that she was blonde and her friend was brunette. There were two people not six feet from us while you were grinding on my hand. You were too into what was happening to care.”
“Stop.” My face flushes.
“I shit you not. I think it turned you on.”
“Did not.”
“Whatever you say, Red.” He gives me a smooth smile. “Come on. They’re waiting.”
* * *
My last class on odd days is Physics and I’d forgotten something in my locker, so I text Xander that he should meet me there because, yes, he’s insisted on walking me to all of my classes again today. I swing around the corner and stop dead in my tracks.
Justin is busy taking things out of his backpack and swapping them for whatever he needs for his last class. He doesn’t see me for almost thirty seconds as I stand there, palms sweating. I don’t know how to handle him. This is the first time in days that I’ve seen him—in fact, as far as I know he hasn’t been at school until today.
His handsome face is mottled with greenish-yellow bruises, and from the slight swelling still apparent around his nose, I’m pretty sure Xander must have broken it.
I guess I made a noise while looking over the state of his face because his head swivels in my direction. When he sees it’s me, his eyes go hard and narrow on me.
I don’t know what comes over me, but I feel the urge to apologize. Probably dumb of me considering what he’d attempted the other night, but I feel terrible that he got his ass handed to him.
Stepping up beside him, I try to catch his eye again. He slams his locker shut and rounds on me, backing me up to my locker. “Did you need something, Scarlett?” His hand shoots out and shoves my shoulder, knocking me off balance. The back of my head hits the locker with a loudbangagainst the metal. I gasp, pain rocketing through me.
I close my eyes, and before I know it, his hands grip my jacket, and I’m shoved backward again. I’m aware of a commotion, of other people coming in our direction, some shouting, but I can’t make out what anyone is saying. Everything happening around me seems hazy.
“I don’t fucking think so.”
My breath stutters out, and I watch in shock as Xander yanks Justin from me and slams him into the opposite bank of lockers.
The look on Xander’s face is harsh and cruel. He gets in Justin’s face and hisses at him, “That isn’t how we treat women. Who’d you learn that move from?”
Justin looks up at him. “Probably your dad, asshole.”
Xander blinks. “You don’t get to breathe the same air she does. Do you understand me?”
“She’s just a Thorn. What’s it to you?”
“You know what? It’s never mattered to you, Rose or Thorn. You’re a miserable, abusive shit.”
“Again, wonder where I learned that from, asshole. At least I’m not actually blood-related to him.”
Xander’s fist flies straight into Justin’s nose. Blood spurts everywhere, and he howls in pain. Can’t say I feel bad for him anymore. And what the hell is Justin talking about that he and Xander’s dad are notactuallyrelated? What am I missing?
At some point, I must have sunk to the floor because once Xander is satisfied that Justin isn’t going to cause anymore issues, he turns back to me, squatting down on his haunches in front of me. “Are you okay? Let me see your head.”
A few teachers rush toward us, but he waves them off.
One of them doesn’t listen, coming toward Xander like he was the problem.
“Xander, with me, to the office. Now.”
Beau catches the teacher in the chest with a hand, backing him up. “Give them space. And maybe take that wailing piece of trash to the headmaster instead.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at Justin.
Another student, a girl from our Physics class, comes forward. “Justin shoved her hard into the lockers a couple of times before Xander showed up.”
I’ll have to remember to thank her because the teachers decide to deal with Justin and leave us be.